-Economic and Political Weekly     Sustained and focused efforts have to be made by the Tamil Nadu state government to provide relief and rehabilitation to the drought affected people of the state. S Rajendran (myrajendran@gmail.com) is with the Department of Economics, Periyar University, Salem, Tamil Nadu. Due to the failure of the north-east monsoon in December 2013, Tamil Nadu is witnessing drought like conditions this year, leading to poor agricultural productivity, rural distress,...

-Newsclick.in Since being installed in government the BJP's ministers have announced a slew of measures to usher in "better days". True to this pattern, the new government's health minister - Dr.Harsh Vardhan - has articulated a number of priorities in the health sector. None of them come as a surprise as they are true to the BJP's core ideology of further promoting the neoliberal agenda of the previous UPA government. What Dr.Harsh...

-The Times of India NAGPUR: If the post election period had provided some respite to consumers with prices of food grains going down amid fears of a crackdown on hoarders in the Modi regime, low rainfall has led to a rebound in the last one week. After the new government took over, prices of several food items had eased from the level during the election time. Traders say news of poor monsoon has...

India has witnessed many fiery debates on poverty estimates. Equally contentious has been the issue of inequality. Now a new report on exclusion offers a fresh perspective on poverty, inequality and social justice. (See below a summary of the report) Based on data and knowledge resources available in the public domain, India Exclusion Report 2013-14 highlights the systematic discrimination faced by women, Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs), Muslims, persons with...

-The Times of India   Last month's general election brought the role of media under the spotlight. Media faced severe criticism from political parties, intellectuals and industry insiders for allegedly being partisan during elections. A large section of mainstream media has been castigated as "paid media" by social media enthusiasts. In this context, however, a great deal of work already exists in the political economy literature analyzing the real effects of having a...